A Double Life

by Flynn Berry

  He left England in November of 1991. At the time, Croatia was at war. It had declared independence from Yugoslavia that June and was fighting against the Yugoslav People’s Army. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were fleeing the country. My father could move in the opposite direction, and no one would look for him. They wouldn’t even think of it. The airports were closed, and there were no passenger flights into or out of the country, only UN and NATO ones. But there were gaps in the border, which he could have hiked across. It wouldn’t have been hard to blend in, thousands of UN peacekeepers were sent to Croatia that year. My father would look like any of the other Europeans or Americans who had come to contain or profit from the war.

  I think he would like living in a war zone. It would make him feel brave, without being in much danger. He could stay far from the worst of the fighting, he could move into one of the thousands of homes that had been abandoned.

  Below me, a line of white foam furs along the hull of the ferry. We’re far from the mainland now. Ahead of us are the first of the islands, Solta and Brac. I walk to the front of the boat as slowly the islands draw closer. They look improbable, like two sections of pine forest carved out and set on the sea. We pass between them and into the open water, the open Adriatic. Homer wrote about these islands. I wonder if that influenced my father’s decision, he’d enjoyed studying classics when he was at Eton.

  But he might not be here, I repeat to myself as the ferry approaches the island. Alice or Sam might have lied, I shouldn’t expect anything.

  I don’t believe it, though. After Alice texted me, I remembered that at dinner on my first night at Ashdown, Rose and James said they’d never been to Croatia. I went through the pictures I’d taken of their bank statements again and found a payment to a hotel in Dubrovnik.

  And everything I’ve learned about this place would suit my father, both his preferences and his unusual circumstances. Hvar is supposedly the most beautiful of the islands, and Hvar Town is where the wealthiest travelers visit. He’d be able to see the sort of people he likes.

  The ferry docks at Stari Grad. When I climb down the rusty stairs, an attendant is directing a line of cars off the ferry. I follow a few of the other passengers to a bus stop, and set my bag in the dirt while searching through the unfamiliar banknotes for the fare.

  A bus arrives, its exhaust sticking to the sweat on my face while I wait to board. The ride south across the island to Hvar Town will take twenty minutes. The bus is full, and I sit with my arms linked around my backpack. While researching Hvar and Croatia last night, I learned that thousands of UN peacekeepers and contractors stayed here after the war. Some of them became involved in the sex trade as clients. I don’t know if that’s the right word. The women weren’t paid, and they couldn’t leave. Some of the peacekeepers became traffickers themselves, of the women they had been trained and sent to protect. None of them have been arrested for this. None of them have been punished at all, as far as I know, though I hope I’m wrong, I hope someone has a list of those men and is working through them one by one.

  The houses of Stari Grad fall away, and on either side of the road are rocky hills and low maritime trees. Late-afternoon sunlight slants through the olive bushes. Through the open window, I hear the bus tires hiss on the tarmac. Ahead of us, the road curves between the limestone hills. The sun is low enough in the sky that some of the hillsides are in shadow and others are golden. We’re in the island’s interior now, but you can still tell that the sea is nearby. He’s chosen such a beautiful place for himself.

  I read that the hills are bare because medieval Venetians logged the island to build their ships. Hvar Town was a Venetian port once. He’d like that, he always liked Italy.

  The road starts to drop down a hill. We pass a construction site behind a chain-link fence, a digger left beside a pile of rubble, then a few cement houses with bars over their windows. The road bends and Hvar Town appears below us, a jumble of red-tiled roofs on a slope around the harbor, the blue Adriatic stretching away to a line of haze at the horizon.

  • • •

  I follow the crowd of passengers from the bus stop to the square in the center of town. A cathedral is at one end, the harbor at the other. A few of the other travelers head straight for a restaurant with tables under red umbrellas, and I walk past it, searching each of the faces for his.

  I pull at my shirt, trying to separate it from the sweat on my back and stomach. Two men speaking English pass behind me and I turn around, but they’re too young.

  The harbor promenade isn’t crowded, but the bars along it are busy and all of the moorings, just on the other side of the seawall, are taken. I watch the uniformed crew moving around a large yacht.

  In the summer, thousands of visitors arrive here to swim and sunbathe and get leathered on rosé. Some of the bars rent sun loungers on stone outcroppings for fifty euros a day. There are parties on the yachts, at villas, restaurants, and nightclubs, and beach bars that people swim to from their sailboats. Even in exile, he’s still managed to be at the center of things.

  Then in the fall the visitors leave and the locals reclaim the town. I think he’d like that part too. It even sometimes snows here in the winter.

  A man steps onto the deck of a four-tiered yacht moving across the water, with a phone to his ear, and bounces the flat of his hand on the railing. Past the harbor are the tiny Pakleni islands, more like an exposed reef. I count nine sailboats floating around them. My father knows how to sail, he might be on one of them.

  • • •

  My hotel is an old stone building off the square. I had to give the clerk my passport, and she carefully wrote down its number in a ledger. I didn’t book one of the rooms with a kitchenette, since I plan to eat all of my meals out, though there’s little chance of seeing him in a restaurant, there are dozens in town. I’ve found the ones that he would probably like—Gariful, DiVino, Dalmatino—but he might prefer to order a plate at a bar, or to cook at home.

  I’ve tried to work out the places most people have to visit regularly in a town this size: the supermarket, petrol station, cashpoint. There’s a large cashpoint at the bank on the square, and two petrol stations, both on the road to Stari Grad, but the supermarket seems like the best place to start. There’s a Spar on the edge of town and anyone who lives here is likely to visit it often. Even if he pays someone to do the shopping for him, he might still stop at the Spar for incidentals, beer, for example, or soap.

  By the time I arrive at the supermarket, it’s only an hour from closing but still busy. The doors barely have time to shut between customers. An old woman leaves carrying a pink chicken breast in plastic, then a group of gap-year students with groceries and bags of ice. A few locals stop in on their way home from work, still dressed in hotel and restaurant uniforms. An Englishwoman motions to her bare feet, and waits outside the supermarket while her husband enters. She notices me, and I pretend to also be waiting for someone inside.

  The rush slows eventually. Through the glass storefront, I watch the cashiers stretch their backs and chat with one another. Another customer arrives, and the automatic doors hang open for a moment after he’s passed through them.

  At nine, a girl leaves her till with a large ring of keys and locks the supermarket doors from inside. I buy a burek from a stall and carry the greasy paper bag to the cathedral steps. The stone facade of the cathedral is lit behind me. A few other visitors sit on the steps, and the smell of weed drifts over. I lick the grease and pastry flakes from my fingers.

  At the restaurant on the square, the red umbrellas are all closed, tied with strips of canvas. I can see all of the people at the tables, my father’s not among them. Voices and the scrape of cutlery echo around the square. I finish the burek and crumple its oil-stained paper.

  A few of the diners pay their bills and the waiters come to clear their dishes. It’s after ten. My father’s at home now, probably. Readi
ng, maybe, or preparing for bed.

  * * *

  —

  A SMALL PEBBLED BEACH lies past the harbor. I sit on the shore with my elbows on my knees while morning sunlight shines through the clear green water. The wind is at my back, lifting glassy clear prongs from the tops of the waves.

  No one comes down for a swim. At seven, I stop at a café on the promenade for breakfast and a pot of thick, syrupy coffee. A young woman in a black shift and apron brings it to me. “Have you lived here long?” I ask.

  “I grew up in Stari Grad,” she says. She barely has an accent. In the high season, she must speak English as often as Croat.

  “It’s such a beautiful place,” I say, and she smiles to herself, as though adding this to a counter of tourists describing her home to her. “Are there many expats here?”

  “Some.”

  “Where are they from?”

  She looks to the ceiling, lifts her eyebrows, sighs. I notice that she’s written a number on the back of her hand in black marker. “Germany. Holland.”

  I pour milk into the coffee. “Any Brits?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a particular bar they go to? I was hoping to watch the football match tonight.”

  “They go to all the bars,” she says darkly. Not the most polite guests, from what I’ve read, especially the British students. Across the room, a man in a pink polo shirt is trying to summon the waitress, his finger in the air.

  “Have any of the expats been here long?” I ask. She seems willing to continue talking to me, if only to keep the man in the polo shirt waiting. “My friend’s uncle moved here,” I say. “Maybe you know him. He’s English, he must be in his sixties now.”

  “William?” she says.

  I have to clear my throat before I can speak. “That might be it, I can’t remember his name. Is he tall?”

  She holds her hand flat in the air, below her shoulder, and my lungs deflate. The man in the polo shirt is halfway out of his chair now, clutching his napkin in a fist against his lap. She sighs and crosses the room to him.

  * * *

  —

  THERE ARE LONG GAPS between customers at the Spar, it’s not as busy as last night. The day has turned hot and the nails in the bench burn my skin when I brush against them. I want to take a book from my bag, but I might miss him while reading. Some detectives apparently use language tapes while doing this sort of thing. I considered that, or a radio show, an Archers omnibus would be comforting. I didn’t download any, as a kind of bargain. I’ll endure this discomfort, and he’ll appear.

  I have brought a bag of fruit gums, though, and allow myself one per hour. While people go in and out of the Spar, I explore different ways of eating a fruit gum, sucking, chewing, dissolving, pressing to the roof of my mouth. The bargain was idiotic. I wish I had something to do with my hands. The backpacker next to me on the bus here spent the ride knitting. She seemed to enjoy it, it seemed a nice way to pass the time. Sometimes I stand and do a circuit of the lot, or stretch my arms. Still, by nine my body is aching from spending so many hours on the bench.

  My legs float beneath me as I cross the town square. I’ve barely drunk anything today, and drain a liter of water before reaching the harbor. I press my body to the seawall and look down at the black water between the boats.

  He might not even be here. He might not be in Croatia at all. Alice might have told her parents the truth, and they advised her on what to tell me. I might be watching a supermarket in a town where he doesn’t live. The memory of how carefully I applied the hair dye at home makes me wince. I put Vaseline along my hairline first, so the dye wouldn’t stain my skin, so when we met my father wouldn’t know it had been done recently. I took a long time over this, and made sure not to miss any spots.

  This is only a more humiliating version of all the other research trips I’ve taken in the past. To Newhaven, Eton, Rules. When it’s over, I’ll return home, like I did after those trips, and try to convince myself that I’m making progress.

  Last winter I read about a man who was stabbed in the neck by a stranger at the tube station in Walthamstow. He narrowly survived. In an interview afterwards, he said he hoped his attacker received the help he needed. He’d only agreed to the interview to raise awareness of planned cuts in the mental health budget. He said no, he wasn’t frightened of using the tube again. Despite the interviewer’s best efforts, he showed no signs of being traumatized. He said he’d decided to think of the attack as he would, say, a bicycle accident.

  What would my life have been like if I’d made that decision.

  33

  A LARGE YACHT FLOATS in the deep channel outside the harbor, since it’s too wide to fit in the moorings. From the café on the promenade, I watch a motorboat traveling towards it, carving white foam from the blue water. A hatch in the yacht opens, and the smaller boat steers inside. This surprises me, a boat inside a boat. It reminds me of a toy I once had, a stuffed dog with a Velcro tab and puppies inside. I doubt the owner of the yacht would appreciate the comparison.

  I return to the bench outside the supermarket and press play on the first of the Archers episodes. I have thirteen hours of them downloaded. I’ve brought a bag of pick-and-mix, too. More flavors, more to keep me occupied as the day wears on.

  There aren’t many customers, so I spend most of my time watching the road, which leads across the island to Stari Grad, though most of the cars pass too quickly for me to see who’s inside.

  I’m becoming more convinced that Alice has punished me by sending me here. I don’t entirely blame her, though the idea makes me feel exhausted, enervated. If it’s true, then this is probably the first of many punishments. Her parents will want to teach me a lesson, if they know I’ve been inside their home.

  I don’t have to stay here and wait. I never bought a return ticket, I can go to the airport tomorrow. Before I left, I prepared my flat for a long absence. I suspended the post, emptied the fridge, lowered the thermostat so the heat won’t switch on in a cold snap. I brought Jasper to Laila’s with a month’s supply of kibble and most of his toys. I completed each of those tasks with a sense of purpose. I was being deliberate, like I needed to have all of my affairs in order before what would happen next. I want to crawl out of my skin with the shame of this. A better person would forgive him. A different sort of better person would have found him years ago.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT EVENING, a Sunday, the Spar closes early. I wonder if my father attended church this morning. It’s one of the questions I’ve had for ages, if he has given confession, if there’s a priest somewhere who has known the truth and decided not to break the oath of secrecy. At times I’ve hated this imagined priest as much as my father.

  At five, a cashier locks the supermarket doors and I return to town. I decide to watch the cashpoint in the square, but after sitting for a moment, I’m on my feet again. I’m too hot, I’ve spent the whole day sweating. I stop at the hotel for a swimsuit before going to the beach.

  I take off my dirty clothes and walk into the water. I swim a few lengths under the surface and chills sweep down my back. I dive down into the cooler channels. The backs of my eyes are indigo, then red as I swim up into the sunlit water. It’s clear enough to see the pebbles on the bottom, and the sea urchins. A few fish knife past. I float on my back, and the water lifts me up and down.

  I’m far enough out to see other swimmers in coves down the coast. A woman steering a small sailboat back to the harbor raises her hand to wave to me as she goes past. I swim parallel to the land until my muscles ache.

  I start to walk in to shore, then gasp, doubling over. I lift my foot from the water and rest it on my other leg. A black sea urchin spike is sticking from the bottom of my foot. I pull it out, and a line of blood curves over my foot and drips into the water.

  On shore, I squeeze my hai
r into a knot and pull a dress over my wet bathing suit. I should pick up an antiseptic, the splinters can cause infection. I cut into town on the narrow medieval roads. It’s Sunday evening, the chemist’s might be closed. The bottom of my foot doesn’t hurt, exactly, but I’m aware of the place where the spike entered.

  I walk past a hardware shop, then turn back. They might have rubbing alcohol. I push open the door, and a man on the other side smiles and steps back into the shop to make room. He reaches to the top of the door to hold it open for me.

  I look at him to say thank you, and the sensation is like a hard shove. He smiles and apologizes. Then I move aside and he steps through the doorway. The door swings shut, and he passes on the other side of the glass.

  I reach my hand out for balance and knock a box of measuring tapes to the floor. I bend to pick them up, grabbing fistfuls and stuffing them back into the box, and then I’m on the road outside the shop.

  Twenty-six years ago, he sat across from me in a booth at Luxardo’s, in a dark suit, with the parlor’s striped wall behind him. He looks the same, though his forehead is hatched with vertical and horizontal lines, and there are pouches under his eyes.

  He’s already at the corner. I walk slowly, keeping the same distance between us. A plastic bag from the hardware shop swings from his hand. We walk towards the square on a narrow road, under the stone buildings and red roofs. He takes a canister from the bag and reads its label while he walks.

  I look at the back of his head. His hair is silver now. He’s wearing a collared shirt with the sleeves pushed up, canvas trousers, and suede boots. He always did dress well. He turns uphill, away from the village, but his stride doesn’t change, he’s still in good shape. My foot slips. When I look down, there’s blood in my sandal, I’ve left a trail of it behind me.

  The road hooks and he passes out of sight. I come around the corner in time to see him climbing into an old desert jeep with cracked leather seats and no roof or doors. I’m close enough to hear his keys clinking before the engine starts, and to see ropes and a tire iron in the open trunk.